


stay with me

by enamuko



Series: Casphardt Week [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: Caspar has always been an early riser. Of all the things he doesn’t quite understand about Linhardt, that’s probably the biggest one; how he could just lie in bed all day and not feel like he wants to crawl out of his skin from the energy building up.Of course, Linhardt has a few other reasons to not want to get out of bed, other than just laziness...
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Series: Casphardt Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535510
Comments: 10
Kudos: 105





	stay with me

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt three for Casphardt week! Prompt is 'War Time'.

Caspar has always been an early riser. Of all the things he doesn’t quite understand about Linhardt, that’s probably the biggest one; how he could just lie in bed all day and not feel like he wants to crawl out of his skin from the energy building up.

Of course, even Linhardt doesn’t really have the luxury of being able to sleep in as late as he wants anymore; it’s not like the days of the Academy where it probably didn’t matter if he missed his classes, Linhardt is the smartest guy Caspar has ever met, after all.

Now? Now they’re at war.

It  _ is _ one of the few mornings they haven’t had to get up at the crack of dawn to go on the march. Caspar still wakes up at the first few rays of sun coming in through the window. At this point, he’s not sure he could sleep in if he tried, unless he was sick or something.

Waking up might not be the problem, though. The problem might be actually managing to get out of bed, because Linhardt is wrapped around him and doesn’t seem to have any intentions of letting go.

It’s not like it’s unusual. Caspar wakes up most mornings like this. Sometimes he still reels from the fact that he  _ gets _ to wake up most mornings like this, but he’s pretty much used to it by now.

Most people probably wouldn’t peg Linhardt as a clingy sleeper when they first meet him, just because he gives off kind of a distant, not especially friendly vibe. Caspar knows better, though; he’s known better since he was six, after all. (And next to people like Hubert and Felix, he’s positively  _ cuddly _ .)

Linhardt’s arms are wrapped completely around his waist, joined at the back in a surprisingly tight grip for someone who can’t even be bothered to stay awake on the battlefield and who needs to be carried up stairs half the time because he’s too lazy to do it himself. (Although he never has trouble getting himself up to the library, so Caspar is pretty sure he’s just gotten spoiled by Caspar carrying him to bed, but it’s not like he  _ minds _ .)

Their legs are tangled together, too, which is much more of a problem. Arms he could deal with. He could even pick Linhardt up and put him back in bed if he had to (and he was pretty sure Linhardt had faked being asleep a few times just to be manhandled like that, which Caspar thought was pretty dumb, since he was happy to manhandle Linhardt any time he asked). But legs? He doesn’t want to end up flat on his face. Especially since he’d probably end up crushing Linhardt and then he’d never hear the end of it.

“Lin.” He hisses right into Linhardt’s ear, but it doesn’t get him anything more than a sleepy twitch. “Lin, wake up. It’s morning.”

Linhardt grumbles, turning to bury his face into the crook of Caspar’s neck and somehow burrowing even closer.

“Linhardt.”

By this point, he knows it’s probably a lost cause. He’s being literal about seeing Linhardt fall asleep on the battlefield. He’s also seen him sleep in the middle of the dining hall, and more than once he’s had to carry him to bed from the library, even though there’s no way sleeping hunched over like that could be comfortable. And honestly, he’s not sure why he’s bothering…

They’re not on the march. Training, sure, but training can wait until later. He’s starting to feel that weird not-quite-itch he gets when he’s been sitting still for too long, but then he looks down at Linhardt’s face buried in his neck…

He still doesn’t quite know how things got to this point. He couldn’t really point at a moment when everything changed. But now he wakes up most mornings in Linhardt’s bed, or with Linhardt in his (and really, the only difference is whether the room is covered in books or not), with Linhardt curled up with him…

It’s almost like the sleepovers they used to have when they were kids… Except for the fact that Linhardt isn’t wearing any clothes, and even tangled up with him the way he is, Caspar can see the bruises he’s left all across his pale skin.

So like the sleepovers they used to have when they were kids, except better.

While he’s admiring all the lovely marks he left on Linhardt the night before, he feels Linhardt stir, almost squirming. He makes a grumbling noise that gets lost in Caspar’s shoulder. Caspar puts his arms around him more tightly, returning the favour for waking up so tangled in him he couldn’t even get out of bed.

Linhardt says  _ something _ , that much Caspar is sure of. “Huh? Didn’t catch that.”

“The  _ curtains _ ,” Linhardt repeats, only slightly more clearly, but enough that Caspar can tell those are words even if he’s only about fifty percent sure that’s what Linhardt actually said. Context clues help.

“What, can’t sleep with the sun in your eyes? That’s new.” Linhardt has always been the one to tease Caspar, so the reverse is kind of new, still novel enough that Caspar grins like a kid getting away with something.

“Hurts…”

“Hurts?” It’s still hard to hear Linhardt with him trying his best to burrow his way into Caspar  _ completely _ , but that one he’s pretty sure he got.

The noise Linhardt makes is halfway between a grumble and a whimper, and when Caspar sees the way his eyes are screwed up together, he feels a little twinge of guilt for making fun.

“I can close the blinds,” he says, bringing his voice down. “But I have to get out of bed to do that, Linny.”

Linhardt pulls his limbs back, and Caspar actually misses the feeling of having Linhardt wrapped around him even though just a few minutes ago he was trying his best to get out of his grip. He doesn’t waste any time in going over to the single window in the small room and pulling the curtains closed to block out the light coming through.

He hears Linhardt sigh contentedly from bed, and when he looks back, Linhardt has sprawled across the bed with his arm thrown over his eyes. The bed is small, too small for the two of them— especially now that he’s had his growth spurt— but they’ve always made it work.

“You want some water?”

Linhardt makes a high-pitched noise at the back of his throat and nods.

Caspar moves over to the desk and pours a glass of water and brings it over to Linhardt. He can’t drink while he’s lying down, but he doesn’t look like he’s getting up any time soon, so Caspar slips an arm under Linhardt’s back and helps him to sit up against the headrest even as he insists on being dead weight and making complaining noises about it.

Linhardt reaches for the glass, and instead of his eyes being drawn to the bruises and bitemarks he left all over his shoulders and neck and chest, they’re pulled towards Linhardt’s hand.

Caspar’s eyes trace the pale red lines starting at the tips of Linhardt’s fingers and stretching down his hand and wrist. When Linhardt takes the glass from him, Caspar takes his other hand in his own and rubs his thumb over Linhardt’s knuckles.

He has his share of scars; he probably would have even more if it weren’t for Linhardt, and he’s fine with his own scars. Proud of them, in fact, because they mean he lived and the enemy didn’t.

That doesn’t mean he likes seeing scars on Linhardt, though.

First of all, his scars are different. Caspar didn’t even know magic scars were a  _ thing _ before the Black Eagle Strike Force. They’re battle scars, sure. But they’re signs of Linhardt pushing himself further and harder than he should, which Caspar doesn’t like one bit.

For a guy who hates putting effort into anything, he sure puts a lot of effort into things that could end up killing him.

Linhardt drinks the glass of water so fast that Caspar is worried he’ll choke, but he manages nothing but a small sputter before handing the empty glass back. He hasn’t opened his eyes once the entire time, but he cracks one open to look at Caspar through his squint before shutting it again and settling back into the pillows Caspar’s shoved behind his head.

“Thank you…”

His voice is still thick and hoarse from just waking up, but at least he’s not talking directly into Caspar’s shoulder anymore.

“Headache again?”

Linhardt nods and hides his eyes behind his arm again, even though the room is dark now, although not exactly pitch black since the curtains aren’t  _ that _ thick.

The headaches, like the scars, are new, or at least kind of new. Linhardt didn’t have them before the war and now he does. Manuela says that like the scars, they’re from pushing himself to his limit. Caspar would have been shocked about that back during their school days, when the only reason Linhardt went on missions was because the professor practically dragged him along, but now…

Linhardt falls asleep on the battlefield, sure. But he also keeps the whole Black Eagle Strike Force  _ alive _ , and Caspar knows he would definitely be dead without Lin there to watch his back… Not to mention the nightmares that sometimes make it hard for even someone like  _ Linhardt _ to fall asleep, which Caspar understands completely, considering what they’ve all seen...

“What time is it?”

Caspar doesn’t have a clock to tell the time by (things like that are a luxury when you’re in the middle of a war and Linhardt’s never needed one, and Caspar rarely does either) but judging from the way the sun was coming through the window, “Still pretty early. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

It’s a dumb thing to say because Caspar is pretty sure Linhardt would  _ always _ be asleep if he could be, unless he was in the middle of researching something, even though Lin always tells him he’s being ridiculous when he says things like that. (He knows Linhardt likes spending time with him, duh. But he’s not gonna try to compete with a good night’s sleep. Even  _ he _ knows a losing battle when he sees one.)

“Oh? Weren’t you just trying to wake me up a few minutes ago?”

Caspar laughs, and he knows it’s a bit too loud because Linhardt winces and frowns, and he feels a pang of guilt as he drops the volume of his voice back down.

“Only because you were all wrapped up around me,” he says, pretty much whispering now, which feels weird but at least it makes Linhardt relax again, which means it’s worth it. “Not all of us wanna spend all day in bed, Linny.”

“That’s because some people are  _ wrong _ .”

Now that he’s finished with his drink, Linhardt sinks back down into the bed with a sigh. Caspar watches him disappear into the nest of blankets and pillows that makes up their bed, but instead of immediately going back to sleep like Caspar expects, he cracks open that same eye and looks up at him.

“We’re not marching today, are we?” he asks, and considering they’re still in bed (or Linhardt is, at least), Caspar thinks the answer is pretty obvious, but he answers anyway.

“Nope. Just some war table meetings and stuff later.”

“Then what are you doing out of bed?”

He scoots himself over as much as he can with the pillow-and-blanket mountain in his way and pats the bed next to him with one limp wrist.

Sylvain would probably make a sex joke about it, but Caspar just says, “I dunno, I was gonna start on my training…”

He doesn’t even have to see Linhardt actually roll his eyes to know he  _ wants _ to roll his eyes at him. “A few more minutes won’t make much of a difference either way,” he says, even though a cuddling session is  _ never _ just ‘a few more minutes’ where Linhardt is concerned. Caspar almost starts to whine about it, just to prove to Linhardt that he isn’t gonna give him without a fight, when Linhardt opens his eyes and looks at him with tired puppy eyes and says, “Just until I fall back asleep? Please?”

“Damnit, Lin, now you’re not playing fair!” He’s teasing, but really, how could he say no to  _ that _ ? His best friend— his lover?— looking at him with big eyes and asking him to cuddle with him until he falls asleep? He’s not some kind of heartless monster!

If he didn’t know better, he would think Linhardt is, though, because as soon as he crawls into the bed that definitely isn’t big enough for both of them and wraps them both up in some of Linhardt’s blanket hoard, Linhardt turns around so he can bury his face back into Caspar’s shoulder, tangling their legs back together and latching into his waist again. Making absolutely sure that he’s not going  _ anywhere _ until Linhardt decides to let him.

What a bastard. A beautiful, snuggly bastard with big tired eyes and scars on his hands because he cares too much, about their friends, about  _ him _ , about everyone making it out of this war alive even if it means getting blood on his hands, even when he hates the idea of war right down to his core.

Caspar feels such a wave of appreciation roll over him even though he was (pretending to be)  _ annoyed _ with him just a few seconds ago. The dangers of a short attention span. Linhardt had lectured him on it often enough even though Linhardt changed interests and research topics at the drop of a hat and so wasn’t any better.

Ah well. If this is his fate, there were definitely worse ones. (He should know, he had to face them on a daily basis). Having to put off training and maybe get a lecture for being late to a strategy meeting because he was too busy snuggling with Linhardt?  _ Definitely _ not the worst.

Linhardt uses what Caspar is sure is the last of his strength to pull them together until Caspar gets the message and wraps his own arms around Linhardt and he goes all noodly in Caspar’s grip with a contented sigh.

There’s still a war going on and they’re still going to have to get up and deal with that fact at some point, but for right now? Linhardt is safe and comfortable and happy, and as long as he is, Caspar is too.


End file.
